A Very Good Place To Start
by clarawithfitzsimmonsin221b
Summary: He breaks the rules all the time, so this was no stretch. And it wasn't really weird that he wanted to see her, get to know her right? After all, he saved her life. That obviously gave him license to break her out of prison for the evening. *ONE SHOT*


**A/N: So my friend gave me this prompt to write and so yeah this ended up being a thing that I wrote. Anyway, it isn't connected to any of my other stories or plotlines in any way, shape, or form. It's just a little bit of one-shot stuff :-)**

* * *

_~Let's start at the very beginning _

_A very good place to start~_

* * *

Natalia kept her mask on even as she heard the sound of metal clanging and the lock clicking. Her deep-seated fear of small, enclosed spaces rose up within her, but she pushed it down.

_It's a weakness,_ she told herself, _and the Black Widow is not weak._

She was still in her black tactical gear and still more than bruised from her fight with the man on the rooftops. The man with stormy gray eyes who had been sent to kill her. The man who fought with a bow and had, for some unfathomable reason, let her live. Natalia had a feeling that she might never stop asking why. She pushed the man from her mind right now, odds were she would never see him again and she knew that. For the moment, she settled herself on the lumpy mattress that took up most of the space in her cell and lost herself in blissful unconsciousness.

* * *

Barton wasn't sure what he was doing. He didn't know exactly why he had told (well, _persuaded_ was probably more accurate) Stevens to take the night off or why he was wiggling his lock pick into the keyhole of the most secure S.H.I.E.L.D. holding cell. He cursed under his breath as he worked to get the right angle, struggling with the small tool in his large hands.

_I really should thank whoever got us the electronic lock system, also probably invest in a friend in the tech department so I don't have to manually pick the locks anymore._

He breathed a sigh of relief when the lock finally gave way and he was able to open the door and silently enter the cell. He wasn't surprised one bit to find a pair of green eyes staring at him through the darkness.

* * *

Coulson frowned when he heard one of the computers beep an alert at him. For the most part, his night on surveillance had been uneventful and he had been hoping to keep it that way. His frown deepened when he realized it was the alert for the cell holding the Black Widow.

_Damn. If she found a way out, heads are going to roll, courtesy of Fury. Specifically Barton's head. And probably mine._

He brought up the video feed and let out a breath of relief when he saw Barton standing there, arms crossed, saying something that Coulson couldn't hear. Coulson looked at the cell's occupant and was surprised at the look on her face. It wasn't the mask that she had been sporting all through the day's proceedings, but that mask hadn't completely dropped either. It was a look of listening, of contemplation. It was as though she actually cared about what Barton had to say, like it might actually mean something to her.

_Well, he did save her life. Even to the Black Widow that has to mean something. Maybe it's Barton's sunny personality._

Coulson snorted to himself at that thought. If Barton had anything close to a personality, he would have been able to hold on to a partner longer than a few weeks. Coulson studied the pair on the screen for a few seconds longer. It wasn't hard to see the dynamic that was already developing between the two of them and Coulson closed the video feed, leaving his phone silent on the desk.

_Maybe Barton's finally met his match_.

Coulson turned away from the computer. He trusted Barton enough and for some reason he knew that Natalia Romanova would return with him, although why he knew that she would he wasn't quite certain. One thing he was sure of though was that he was certain to find out in the days and years to come.

* * *

Natalia was awake and tensed the second she heard someone fiddling at the door. A few seconds of listening told her all she needed to know. She had picked enough locks in her own work to know the sound. What she didn't know was why anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. would need to pick the lock to get into her cell. Anyone who would want to see her certainly had high enough clearance to do so without breaking in. So she waited, muscles tense, watching the door. When it swung open she barely concealed her surprise-the gray eyed archer, the one who spared her life, was standing there.

_What the hell is he doing here?_

He held his hands up in the universal signal of surrender to show her that he was unarmed.

_Well, he's not holding any weapons in his hands anyway._

"I figured you'd be about ready to get out of this little hole." He spoke calmly, as if he wasn't talking to an infamous killer, someone who could probably take him out in twenty different ways even in her unarmed state, "So c'mon, this is me, getting you out." Natalia raised an eyebrow at him, wondering how he could be so casual about breaking the rules. What kind of place was this, where an agent could break a prisoner out of her cell and take her for a walk? She stared at the agent a minute longer, letting her gut decide her next move. Finally, she stood and gracefully walked past him out the door.

* * *

"Clint Barton."

Clint chose to use his name to break the silence. Natalia sent him a sideways look.

"Natalia Roman-" She stopped short when she saw that Barton was shaking his head.

"Natasha Romanoff." He looked at her, daring her to question the name. She settled for a questioning look.

"Natalia Romanova was a mercenary killer who is currently locked away in the holding cells," explained Barton, "Natasha Romanoff is a human being who is taking a walk to stretch her legs." Natalia-no _Natasha_-nodded. Clint gave her a crooked smile.

"I hope you like the name. I think I spent something like four hours on it." Natasha wasn't quite sure how to respond to that.

"It's nice," she finally said. Barton nodded and she felt herself settle into the name. It was a bit like a cover for a mission, but for some reason it felt more permanent.

_Maybe it is permanent._

* * *

Coulson didn't even blink two nights later when the computer beeped at him. He did his usual cursory check to make sure that it was in fact Barton, followed by his usual curse directed at his favorite agent for making him put his book down in the middle of a chapter. Coulson wondered if Barton really thought that he was able to pick the locks without someone in surveillance knowing. Of course, there was a very real possibility that Barton knew that Coulson was the one assigned to monitor the Widow's cell at this time of night. He shook his head as he closed the video feed again. Coulson let it go because he knew that Barton would bring her back, knew that she would _come_ back with Barton. No one had quite figured out where that trust had come from, and Coulson seriously doubted that anyone ever would. But it was there and that was all that mattered, so Coulson let them go off and do whatever with their nighttime hours. He tried not to imagine the mischief Barton was getting the Russian into or the things he was showing her around S.H.I.E.L.D.

_Just imagine what I'm going to have to deal with once she's an agent._


End file.
